At the Intersection of Art, Architecture & Design» Remodeling on a Budget – At the Intersection of Art, Architecture & Design

Plywood Flooring – An Attractive, Less Expensive Alternative to Hardwood

Jackie Braitman — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 10:09:12 +0000

I’m working with clients in Takoma Park, MD on a first floor remodel. They are on a very tight budget. They’ve already cut the budget substantially in their willingness to buy and assemble IKEA cabinets and to use laminate countertops. One of the bigger remaining single expenses is hardwood flooring. Since they are willing to do some of the work themselves, I suggested they consider plywood flooring as a short to mid-term alternative. The husband was reluctant because he thought it would look tacky. I realized that he didn’t have a good sense about the variety of plywood and extensive finish options that can make for a very attractive, low-cost alternative to hardwood.

So I decided to pull together some images for him and thought I would also share them here.

Plywood Flooring - Baltic Birch

The floor above, in my opinion, is anything but tacky. It appears to use 4′ x4′ baltic birch with the grain alternating in a each “tile”. It appears to have a clear urathane finish. This image comes from Design-Crisis.com

Plywood flooring - full sheets

The floor, above, appears to be full sheets of birch plywood with exposed screws and using just a urethane finish. This is from Luminhaus.

Plywood Flooring - Full Sheets - Gloss Finish

This is also birch plywood and also uses exposed, countersunk screws.

The floor, below, uses biscuit joins to create a 2’ x2’ plywood floor without any exposed hardware. It uses a very similar technique as the first image but with smaller tiles and a different plywood veneer.

PlywoodFloors - 2' Tiles

The two images, above, are from the LiveModern Forums.

The stunning floor below is plywood that’s been hand-painted in a faux marble finish. Read about the process at PaintYoga.com

Marble Faux Finish on Plywood Floor

Large Checkerboard Painted Plywood Floor

The floor, above, is painted in a large checkerboard pattern using 4′ x 4′ plywood “tile”.

You can see additional painted floor (mostly plank floors) at Design-Crisis.com

Whitewashed Plywood Flooring

And finally, the above home uses whitewashed plywood as flooring. Read More about this project at modresdes.com

The cost savings comes from both the material and the labor of finishing the wood. It only saves significant money if you’re willing to do the painting or finishing yourself. In my client’s case, if we move forward with plywood flooring, my subcontractor will install the floor but the client will do the finishing. For those of you interested in doing the total job yourselves, here’s a great discussion on livemodern from professionals to homeowners who have installed their own plywood floors.

The Decorated Ceiling – It’s All in the Details

Jackie Braitman — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 03:15:25 +0000

Many of us love the “charm” of an older home – one built before 1930. For the most part what we’re responding to is the architectural detailing that comes from building without stock parts and without a production mentality. In today’s home, such detailing is no less desirable – whether it’s funky, traditional, or rustic.

Funky:

Painted Lumber Hide Electrical Wires

In my sculpture studio, above, I used painted lumber to hide electrical wires – both to the fluorescent fixtures and to the low voltage track lighting. This action was actually a cost savings action; it was cheaper to hide the wires behind lumber than to fish them through old plaster ceilings. Even adding the additional decorative lumber – one of the legs of the large angle plus the 4 cross pieces – was cheaper than fishing the wires through the ceiling. The labor of painting the lumber was my sweat equity. 2 additional cost savings actions – seen above and below – included (1) a piece of ¼” luan to hide the hole created where we took down a wall – painted bright aqua, and (2) a graphic painted on the wall and ceiling to disguise a ceiling that’s badly out of level. The white railing is hung level (used as a flexible hanging rail for both pictures and shelving). It’s 5” closer to the ceiling at its end than at the corner. The bright graphic helps disguise this flaw of a hundred year old building.

Graphics Disquise Sloped Ceiling

The ceiling of Spin Pizza, below, again uses raw lumber to hide a mish-mash of ceiling elements. The overall effect is actually calming in it’s randomness. Read article

Ceiling Spin Pizza

Traditional:

A soffit is often used to help define areas within a room. In the rendering, below, I plan to use a soffit to define a foyer in a home in Bethesda, MD where the front door opens directly into the living room. The new foyer is defined on one side by a stained glass panel and on the other side by a new coat closet and an alcove with a door to a new powder room. By painting the soffit a dark charcoal and the walls of the foyer a darker gray than the rest of the living room, the foyer feels enclosed. You get a feeling of expansion as you walk into the living room. A stone floor in the foyer completes the look. The stone floor and outfitted coat closet allows the foyer to functions as a mud room entry.

Soffit used To Define Foyer

In the photo, below, a gentle pearl color on the sloped ceiling and cove lighting give a special effect.

Soft Pearl Ceiling Highlighted With Cove Lighting

And below we, again, use a darker color on the soffit of a faux tray ceiling.

Dark Soffit Helps Define Tray Ceiling

A 3-part crown molding sets off the ceiling, below, in a 1905 vernacular farmhouse.

3-Part Crown Molding

Rustic or Country:

Wood plank ceilings are a common element in rustic construction. Below are two images from a blog posting on cottage style from completely-costal.com. Go to the original post and notice that almost all the ceilings are decorated – usually with painted or unpainted wooden planks.

Painted Plank Ceiling

Whichever style makes sense for your home, special details on the ceiling or that frame the ceiling can lend immeasurable charm to your home.

Images courtesy of Braitman Design/Build unless noted.

Updating Another Fireplace

Jackie Braitman — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:59:02 +0000

Modern, Updated Fireplace

I’m always surprised at how easy and yet dramatic it is to update a fireplace. Life, for this firebox, started out in the 1950’s as a country-look brick fireplace – see below. We removed the wood mantle, chipped away the brick shelf-brackets, and removed the brick hearth. A slightly narrower hearth was allowed by code since we were putting in a gas insert. A new mud base was laid to bring the hearth back up to floor level. Large format porcelain tile was laid directly on the brick. The same tile was used for the mantle as for the fireplace. The tile is 26″ x 13″ laid horizontally. Brushed metal edging was used in place of bullsnose tile. The fireplace was plumbed for natural gas. The country-look plank cabinet was replaced with a European-style full overlay cabinet in natural alder. Finally, the gas insert and new glass doors were installed.

The monolithic look — without mantle or other embellishment — is a very sleek, modern look. The horizontal picture emphasizes the vertical monolithic form of the fireplace.

Fireplace "Before" Changes

All images courtesy of Braitman Design/Build

Basement Remodeling – Cost Components

Jackie Braitman — Mon, 18 May 2009 20:29:36 +0000

Proposed Basement Remodel

I’m in the process of designing a basement for one of my clients in Bethesda, MD. It’s a modest split-level 1950’s era home. The basement is already finished with a vinyl tile floor and drywall walls and ceiling. It’s split into 2 rooms. They want it converted to a playroom and an au pair’s bedroom & bath. They were hoping to keep the costs to $40,000 but also wanted some more expensive options such as porcelain tile flooring throughout, a glass shower surround, and recessed lighting fixtures in all rooms.

Above is a floor plan for remodeling the basement. You can see that we’ve kept the wall dividing the space and allocated the space for the bedroom and playroom. The sewer line runs under the floor just a few feet off the new wall that will have toilet and shower stall. Which makes the bath location the most cost effective. I have not included in the drawing the location of light fixtures and other details.

Since most of us have a hard time believing how expensive remodeling can be, I thought it would be useful to see the costs of the different components for this remodeling project and where cost savings can be achieved.

Budget with Potential Savings

You can see that even this modest proposal comes to about $62,000. With changes in finish level, we can reduce the cost to just over $50,000. This includes a 10% contingency which is a bare minimum.

So here’s what to keep in mind if you want to achieve savings:

The labor costs for specialty trades such as plumbers and electricians is 2-3 times the cost of construction labor. You can lower these costs by keeping down the number of fixtures and difficulty of installation. For this basement, we could lower the costs for the electrician by using fewer surface mount fixtures instead of recessed fixtures like the client originally wanted. Because we have to break into the concrete slab to install the toilet, there’s not much we can do to reduce the plumbing cost.
We can reduce the cost of the bath by replacing the shower with a bath tub and shower curtain; replacing the vanity with a countertop and drop-in sink, and replacing the ceramic tile with an acrylic insert for the tub walls and vinyl flooring. With the exception of the tub, the other changes are not acceptable to this client.
The largest potential savings can come from the choice of flooring material. In this case, it’s not the cost of the material but the labor to install the material that makes the biggest difference. Porcelain, stone or ceramic tile takes a lot of labor to install. If we move to a “sheet” good such as vinyl or carpet, the labor costs can be reduced substantially.
The basement is cold. It sits directly on a concrete slab and the heating ducts are in soffits on the ceiling. We proposed 2 changes to address the problem: First we suggested furring up the floor an inch and putting insulating foam board between new plywood and the existing floor. I know from personal experience that this makes a tremendous difference. Second, we proposed adding additonal ductwork and moving the registers to just above floor level. A cheaper alternative is to add baseboard heat.

These are the costs in the Washington DC area for a fairly bare-bones basement remodel. If you are looking to use more luxurious materials like granite countertops or add additional features such as a kitchenette, the finish costs can easily double or triple.

8 Way to Keep Kitchen Remodeling Costs Down

Jackie Braitman — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:46:17 +0000

Laminate Countertops

One of the readers of my newsletter asked me to pull together some thoughts about ways to keep kitchen remodeling costs down — So here they are:

New Cabinets are one of the highest costs in kitchen remodeling. So the first thing I do with clients is to assess the existing cabinets. If the boxes are solid and in good shape – I think first about replacing the doors and drawer fronts instead of replacing the whole cabinet. If it’s primarily the color that you don’t like – think about staining the doors, drawer fronts and frames instead of replacing the cabinets. That’s what we did in the kitchen, above.
I hate using cabinet bases that have doors instead of drawers – but if you’re keeping the old cabinets and staining them, you can use after-market organizers if you want greater access to old door front base cabinets.
Mix & Match. If you can keep some but not all of the cabinets or need additional cabinets – for all but the most modern of design themes, you can very successfully mix and match different designs and woods. In fact, an un-fitted kitchen can make today’s kitchen feel more like the center of the home that we all crave.
Another major expense is construction labor. You can keep those costs lower by eliminating complexity – create rhythm and interest by use of materials instead of using lots of levels or soffits.
Keep plumbing costs lower by leaving the sink where it is (or close to where it is) and any gas appliances close to their current locations.
Appliances & Plumbing Extras are a 3rd major expense item.
-    Use a 30″-36” Range instead of separate cooktop and ovens
-    Plan for Single Sink — unless you usually have more than one cook in the kitchen
-    Forego the Pot Filler — you’re going to have to carry the heavy pot full of hot water when you need to drain the pasta anyway
-    Design for a stand-alone Refrigerator – make it look built-in instead of going for the built-in model
Use Laminates! I know that granite is all the rage – but laminates have come a long way since the 1950’s! Laminates are used extensively in European-style modern cabinetry and countertops. Using laminates can save thousands of dollars. If you can’t live without an undermount sink, use stone just around the sink area. Use a large stone trivet near the range.
Lighting – Fluorescents have also come a long way in terms of color and function. We can now design in quite attractive and functional fluorescent fixtures at a fraction of the cost of large areas of recessed can lights. Similarly, fluorescent under-cabinet lights keep cabinets cooler and save money over halogen or xenon lights. Save money by finding unusual, but lower cost, pendants for a design accent.

Use the money you save to open the kitchen to the rest of the house and to the outdoors. Create eating and sitting areas on either side of the kitchen so family and guests along with the cook visit together in comfort. The un-fitted, lower cost kitchen remodel can make the kitchen blend seamlessly with the rest of your casual, comfortable home. And you can relax knowing you haven’t mortgaged your soul.

Stain Cabinets Instead of Replacing Them